


There's A Place

by florisuga



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florisuga/pseuds/florisuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kihyun's thought process narrows to the echo of a car revving to life, stirring a feeling in his chest that is either anticipation or apprehension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's A Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainingover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/gifts).



Kihyun jolts awake while the sky is black, silhouettes of buildings only visible in the absence of stars, unaware that he had even fallen asleep. His heart is trying to return to a normal pace when someone's hand starts shaking his shoulder and they tell him, _let's go._

His vision is still bleary when he reaches for the bag he's hidden under his desk, fumbling over the books and boxes and empty food containers that had been pushed out of the way long ago and forgotten. He can't bring himself to care--he only has to put up with the apartment's disarray for a few more minutes, and then he will be _gone._

"This is the first time I've seen you up before Kihyun," Jooheon tells Hyungwon from somewhere near the front door. 

"It doesn't count when he doesn't fall asleep," Changkyun says. 

They've been planning this trip for weeks, talking about it even longer; they'd spent all of the previous day poring over their maps, circling locations and highlighting routes, and when Kihyun finally lay down all he could see was a maze of roadways etched into his mind. Now that the day is here, his thought process narrows to the echo of a car revving to life, stirring a feeling in his chest that is either anticipation or apprehension. 

They keep a quick pace through the hallway, steps deliberate and steady. Kihyun listens for the soft _click_ of their door as it closes, leaving behind anything they can't carry. 

\---

Dawn breaks a few hours into their trip. It's still dark enough that Kihyun has to squint to read over the map in his hands, when apropos of nothing Hyungwon confesses, "I never did study for the sociology final."

Beside Kihyun, Minhyuk groans. "I _couldn't_ study! I had no idea _what_ to study!"

Jooheon makes an all-encompassing gesture toward everyone in the car. "This is all the sociology you need to know," he says. 

"Figure this out," Changkyun adds, "and you'll have mastered the subject."

\---

As Kihyun watches Jooheon and Changkyun across the street, siphoning gas in front of an abandoned rest stop in broad daylight, possible scenarios flash through his mind: someone else looking for easy supplies turning a corner, needing to _run_ , and he feels his blood rush while a voice in the back of his mind tries to convince him that he's not the least athletic in the car.

But the two of them manage to make their way back unnoticed, and Minhyuk tells Kihyun, "You should be more trusting." 

"To be fair," Changkyun says as he climbs into the makeshift bed in the rear of the car, "there is a good degree of luck involved. Like with grocery shopping and driving."

Hyunwoo clears his throat and starts the car back to life. Kihyun tries to read his expression through the rearview mirror, but Hyunwoo is looking in the distance, away from them, and his grip on the steering wheel is almost casual. As Hyunwoo shifts the car to _Drive_ , gas gauge now reading full, there's an illusion, for a moment: this isn't some stranger's car, it could just be any other day off campus, wanderlust-struck and looking for _something._

\---

They arrive after the sun sets at a restaurant Hoseok had marked on their map along the expressway, windows shuttered, front door wide open but on its hinges nonetheless. Once Hyunwoo and Hoseok have finished searching the area for any signs of _anything,_ they crowd into a back corner, lights off. The only thing of interest besides the menu hanging overhead is the painting of an ocean on the far wall. Kihyun leans back, wedged between Minhyuk and Hoseok, and _looks._

"Now would be a good time to visit Hawaii," Hyungwon says. "Especially since vacation season is over."

"I wish we could go," Minhyuk says. He tugs his blanket out of his backpack and pulls it up to his chin. "The weather must be nice."

"I heard they don't even have rabies there," Jooheon adds. "Might as well have some drinks on the beach while the rest of the world goes to shit."

Changkyun slides onto his back, arms spread and lax, like there's nothing in the world to bother him. "The world's already shit," he says. "Enjoy it while you can."

Kihyun falls asleep that night staring at the painting until the details bleed into the dark.

\---

(They stop at a liquor store the next day, before they leave the city. Changkyun returns to the car with a bottle of coconut-flavored rum and calls it _close enough._ )

\---

Hyungwon will not go inside of the mall. 

They're at another destination that they had circled on their map, one that Hyungwon specifically pointed out, but he remains seated even as Hyunwoo navigates through the graveyard of a parking lot and pulls their car right up to the main entrance.

When they ask Hyungwon _why go out of the way for this,_ all he says is that it's the one he was in before, _during._ He just needs to _see_ , he says. Closure, and all that.

Kihyun isn't too keen on the idea either--malls involve people which involves the risk of contact, however slight it has been ever _since._ He's tempted to wait behind too; they have other places they could be.

He stands beside their car, fingers the knife in his pocket, and steadies his heartbeat while the others disappear down the stairs.

\---

Hyunwoo's attention drifts from the stretch of road ahead as they pass a bus pulled off to the side of the road, door open, seats empty. He says, "People were never the enemy."

It's the middle of the afternoon, but Kihyun is the only other person awake. His mind takes an instant to flash through the past few months, and he scoffs. "You don't believe that even now?"

Hyunwoo flicks on the turn signal and changes lanes; it's unnecessary and so textbook, going through calculated, unnatural motions like he's taking a driving exam. Still, Hyunwoo tells him, unconcerned and matter-of-fact, "You don't either."

Kihyun frowns and pulls at his seatbelt, restricting under the supplies balanced on his lap that they'd gathered from the previous stop. He returns his focus to their map and traces the expressway with his fingers for miles and miles.

\---

As Kihyun went through school, he changed. High school days of study groups and meeting friends for food and games turned into university days spent in class or isolated in his dorm room, counting down the time in the back of his mind until he could get up and _go,_ hop on a bus or a train heading anywhere instead of being suffocated and stir-crazy and unable to take his head out of his books. 

Until, one day, he _didn't have to._

Hoseok called Kihyun that night while he was between buildings, demanding to know where he was and if he was with anyone else, and Kihyun stood there, frozen with the reality that things change, life _changes,_ and Hoseok was still talking as Kihyun made the effort to slow his breath after running more than he ever had before. If Hoseok said anything important, Kihyun didn't hear. There was a wail of sirens, and then a scream from down the street that sent Kihyun's blood pounding in his ears all over again. 

In a nearby third-story apartment, he saw a light.

\---

Minhyuk has them stop at a pizza place several miles off their route. The entrance is tucked away, easy to miss by anyone who doesn't know it's there. 

"They had the best cheese," he insists.

This is the first time Kihyun has eaten food that isn't canned or instant in months; it's a piece of bread with tomato paste and frostbitten cheese, still cold to avoid the risk of attention that smoke would bring. It has Kihyun thinking back on late nights spent studying, surviving on prepackaged dinners and coffee. The taste sparks nostalgia, kind of, and his chest tightens.

"Remember that time we survived a week on nothing but Monster?" Jooheon asks Changkyun.

Changkyun drops a few stray shreds of cheese in his mouth. He tells him, "Feels like preparation."

"I think you're exaggerating," Hoseok says, but Kihyun remembers the nights before, when Hoseok would be at his desk into ungodly hours, computer screen glow lighting up their dorm's ceiling as though it were daytime. 

"Not when you have two days to write three papers and study for exams," Jooheon says.

Kihyun tells him, "Maybe you shouldn't put things off so much."

"People do things at their own pace." Jooheon shrugs. "Some people work well under pressure."

"Some people only think they work well under pressure," Kihyun says.

Jooheon shoves the last piece of his dinner into his mouth, chases it with flat soda and says, "I've made it this far."

\---

Changkyun never indicates a place where he wants to visit; he never marks a location on their map, never talks about his home or a park or a mall or a restaurant. When they ask where he wants to go, he tells them: "Anywhere." He says: "Whatever feels right." And then he shoves a disc into the car's drive and fights Hoseok for control of the speakers, turning them up a little too loud.

Hyunwoo also never shares any personal stops. He just stays silent, eyes on the road like he doesn't hear anybody ask; all of his focus is devoted to keeping them moving forward down a vacant highway. He never gives details about his life before, or his family, or his home. 

"Home is where the heart is," Changkyun cuts in once, and then points at his own chest, almost in the center, a little to the left.

\---

The town where Jooheon grew up is no longer the place he remembers, he says. What once had been a bustling street is now empty, no signs of life other than shattered store windows and garbage littered everywhere, graffiti on the walls reading doomsday warnings and addresses and pleas for help. 

Jooheon is busy inspecting one alleyway in particular, searching the walls with an intensity both uncharacteristic and unsettling. Desperate, even. 

"They probably got away," Hoseok tells him, solemn. "They probably heard the news and left." 

Everyone else agrees, on reflex. 

There are stains on the ground, dark, and faded, and ominous. Jooheon scuffs at the edge of one and says without conviction, "Yeah."

\---

The scariest thing about the pandemic was that nobody saw it coming. People were on their way to work, eating breakfast, studying for exams, and then: chaos. Fighting. Looting. Pharmacy raids. Just trying to survive as the pandemic swept through the city, made more destructive by the people uninfected. The panic and confusion had been more tragic than the disease itself, in a way. 

Once Kihyun was safe inside Hyunwoo's apartment, barricaded with people he had never known before, he watched the city burn. Kihyun's knuckles were white around his phone, contact with Hoseok long since broken.

At some point he started into motion with no goal in mind and came back to himself as he helped Hyunwoo pitch everything stable into a growing pile against the door, just in time to hear another person say _we can't last in here._

Kihyun threw his backpack into the heap, weighed-down with textbooks and energy bars, and all he could think about was how _normal_ things had been.

\---

Kihyun considers himself a realist: the world is not good or bad--it just _is._ The glass is not half full or half empty, but there is water in the glass, and life happens.

In the wake of the initial fallout, the shock had been numbing, as though life had _stopped._ There were no more exams. There were no more classes. No more expectations. No more work or friends or family or _normal,_ and the new way to live came so suddenly that adapting and moving on was terrifying.

During that realization, he learned appreciation.

"I think they're somewhere," he says, once. "My family."

Changkyun breathes and says, honestly, "Everyone's is."

Kihyun settles into the sand and stares at the point where the ocean touches the horizon. The last time he had been to the beach was when he was a child, before the expectations of life had set in, while he had _time._ The irony, he thinks, is in the way his life has come full circle, like it has begun again, and he is still young and naive and learning.

There's something oddly comforting in the way they fall into the car, unrushed.

Kihyun relaxes to the sound of the ocean as he concentrates on the rhythm of his heart.


End file.
